This is post 3 of 4 in the series “Apostles' Creed” My series on the Apostles’ Creed must now move on to perhaps what might be regarded as the central section, the section on Christ’s humiliation. This part is gold: who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius …
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Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:29 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to …
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We generally want the Bible read in a way that directly addresses our wants, concerns, needs, and questions. However good such intentions may be, building relevance into the end-all be-all of Biblical interpretation and forcing the text to fulfill that goal does massive violence to Scripture as it has been given to us. It ultimately reflects an attitude in the reader of, "If it's not about me, I don't want to hear it." This is, I submit, simply wrong, and should be repented of if we want to honor God's word as He has provided it.
“God wouldn’t…” This unfortunate phrase appears fairly often in theological debate. Along with this one come on occasion “God couldn’t” or, more rarely, “God shouldn’t.” Yet to me reasoning which starts in this way seems somewhat misguided at best and dangerous at worst. To explain why, I shall first provide some examples of what I dislike. A theistic evolutionist might say, …
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What do churches and laser guns have in common? Pew. I accepted Jesus as my savior, but He keeps using ‘Save As…’ and now there are more than 87 of me. A man walks into a Presbyterian church during worship and they’re singing “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” (That’s it. That’s the joke.) What …
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This is post 2 of 4 in the series “Apostles' Creed” Moving on in my series on the Apostles’ Creed, we come to the second article, about the Lord Jesus Christ. I will split the second on Christ into three parts to give every statement its due. The first part: I believe in Jesus Christ, His only …
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Romans 9 is an interesting and often difficult passage. I’m going to very briefly sketch the way I am inclined to read it, particularly to note the way I don’t think it supports the Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional election, but rather undermines it. Contextual setup: Paul has been defending his Gospel of justification by the faithfulness …
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